10 replies to this topic

[inuyashafanR]

I think we can start now soooo...

Name: Raven
Race: Half-Cat Demon
Age: 14
Height: 5 feet 51/2 inches
Weight:105
Hair color/style: color-blond style-strait/sholder length
Eye color: Green/Blue
Build: Slim, left-handed
Origin: Inu-Yasha

Strengths & abilities: demon strength, speed, agility, sense of smell and eyesight great; great swimmer
Weakness: turns into a human every full-moon; extream smells cause fainting
Biography: I am a decendent from a great line of half-demons. My father was killed in battle by an unknown demon and my mother died of a broken heart shortly after. I was left to defend myself at the age of 9 yrs. It was hard to survive in a world where everyone is so intolerent of each other. I survived only by stealing food from the carts of food in town markets before any towns people found me and stoned me out of town. one night as I was sleeping in an abandoned house a kindly old man by the name of senku found me, took me to his village and home and raised me since I was 12 yrs. One night a band of demons came to destroy the town. The viligers, senku, and I fought the onslaught of demons but no one survived but me. I searched for a week for the demons when I found them at another villige. I slaughted them and have been warding the world a loner ever since.

I hope thats good enough...

[GraniteJJ]

An interesting first post...one which I have several issues with.

Weight:105

105 what? Pounds, kilograms, tonnes? I'm not nitpicking. No one can have a weight that is simply a number.

Hair color/style: color-blond style-strait/sholder length

For this, you could have just said "Raven has straight blonde hair that is shoulder length." It's difficult to read with the dashes and slashes. Not a big beef. Just something to think about for the future.

Also, watch spelling.

Strengths & abilities: demon strength, speed, agility, sense of smell and eyesight great; great swimmer
Weakness: turns into a human every full-moon; extream smells cause fainting

I am going to have to ask you to elaborate greatly on these. For example:

What on Earth is "demon strength"? What is it equivalent too? Can this person lift another individual with ease? A car? A building? You need to specify.

Speed and agility don't really need to be stated twice. It is slightly redundant.

To be perfectly truthful, I'd prefer strengths and weaknesses to be expressed in complete sentences. You act like these are traits I am supposed to know already. Explain to me their strengths and weaknesses as if I have never read a single piece of fiction ever. You should be able to take this character submission to one of your parents and have them understand exactly what you mean.

It would also be nice if you tied your strengths and weaknesses into your characters bio. I know this character isn't an original one, but I would prefer you to explain the specifics of the strengths and weaknesses, and perhaps even touch on how this character developed them.

Biography: I am a decendent from a great line of half-demons. My father was killed in battle by an unknown demon and my mother died of a broken heart shortly after. I was left to defend myself at the age of 9 yrs. It was hard to survive in a world where everyone is so intolerent of each other. I survived only by stealing food from the carts of food in town markets before any towns people found me and stoned me out of town. one night as I was sleeping in an abandoned house a kindly old man by the name of senku found me, took me to his village and home and raised me since I was 12 yrs. One night a band of demons came to destroy the town. The viligers, senku, and I fought the onslaught of demons but no one survived but me. I searched for a week for the demons when I found them at another villige. I slaughted them and have been warding the world a loner ever since.

Although the angle of explaining your biography in first person is very intriguing, I am not getting a very good grasp of who or what your character is. You have failed to explain their appearance whatsoever.

You've only explain the events loosely. Is this character real, or is it clearly supposed to be fictional. Your character has exhibited no emotions whatsoever within this biography, that I can see. Alright, I follow you to the end of the first sentence.

How did Raven feel when she (it is a she right?) lost her father and mother at the age of nine? A child does not take the loss of BOTH parents extremely well at that age. Your character should, for all intents and purposes, be traumatized. They should feel something.

How did your character feel when taken under the wing of Senku? Moreover, how did your character feel as their beloved saviour/friend was killed after their battle with demons?

Overall, you need to beef up your explanations of everything in your biography. I know the character is not your own, and it might be hard to apply your own creativity to a character that is not your own, but use your imagination and try your best to work within this pre-constructed character to make something that contains a bit of you.

Right now, your character seems...fake. If I were to meet Raven in a forest somewhere, then I'm sure she'd have a two-dimensional personality.

Until you beef up your character's strengths/weaknesses, as well as the biography, your character seems more like a NPC who only mutters one useless phrase, as opposed to the heroic warrior you want it to be.


Remember to make your edits in a completely new post. Please use italics, for the ease of the moderators.

[inuyashafanR]

I think I messed up the origin. It IS my own character but i got some of the stuff from Inu-Yasha...I'm not a very good at this so if anyone reads this please help me. and er graniteJJ i'm not a good speller so i can't really help that.

[GraniteJJ]

Alright.

Sorry. I don't actually watch Inu-Yasha, so I was unaware of whether the character was original or not. I was simply taking your word for it. My bad.

Furthermore, the rules forbid people besides you, any other mod and myself from posting in this thread.

I will be willing to help you develop your character. You can add me to your MSN if you want, and I'll help you to the best of my ability. Don't let me seem like an intimidating mod. I'm always willing to help.

Originally posted by inuyashafanR
and er graniteJJ i'm not a good speller so i can't really help that

That's nonsense. It is never too late to improve your spelling and grammar.

So, if you want help, feel free to PM or IM me.

If you want help from someone else, remember to get it outside of this thread, or people will be faced with the punishments as outlined in the rules.

[GraniteJJ]

Note to other mods:

This character submission is pending approval while I give inuyashafanR some help developing his characters bio. Please don't go and close this or anything.

[inuyashafanR]

O.k. i've edited it and had two of my friends go over it tonight on the phone since I got done with it only 10 min. ago, here it is...

Name: Raven
Race: Half-Cat Demon
Age: 14 yrs
Height: 5' 51/2"
Weight: 105 pounds
Hair color/style: Raven has blond hair thats at shoulder length
Eye color: Green/Blue
Build: Slim, left-handed
Origin: original but race and powers based on the show Inu-Yasha

Strengths & abilities: 10x the strength, speed, sense of smell, and eyesight of a human
Weakness: turns into a human every full-moon; smell of ink is harmful to me; pulling my tail drains all of my energy

Biography: I am a decendent from a great line of half-demons. My father was a great warrior and my mother was a kind, old soul. I lived a happy life for many years in the little villige i grew up in until one day a vast evil shrowded the land and a war broke out between my home villige and a group of rogue demons lead by the evil demon Kinamiko. My father and a band of men from our tribe went to face the rogue demons in battle one dark night. i watched the battle from a tree about a mile away, our men where dying by the cart load untill only one man remaind, my father. A demon was about to destroy him when the leader Kinamiko apperd and made the demon stand down. She approched my father and with a swift movement of her sword, cut him in two, and I that moment I knew what true hatred was like. After killing the men of the village they pilliged us of all our goods, burned down our homes and crops, and left us to rebuild our lives. My mother heart was broken and I was left to take care of her and myself. i had no time to greive for the loss of the lives of my father and the rest of the villagers. After I rebuilt the house and planted new gardens, I had to take care of my mother. My mother died only one month after the attack on the village. I was devistated, I was only a child at the tender age of nine. i was tooken in for a while by the Tenkuns, but I ran away after a few weeks unable to bear the site of the village and its horrible memories. I was alone for months, stealing whatever I needed to get by on, constantly thinking about my life the way it was before that horrid battle. the people of the villages called me "The monster" because of my theving and my half-demon status. It was so hard surviving in such an intolerant world. One day a few years later a man came up to me in the forest, he was the famoed martial artist Master Senku. he challenged me to a fight and me being the arragant 11 year old theif I accepted. It didn't take long for him to find my weak spot and bring me down. Amazed that the kindly old man could be so powerful and be so powerful and graceful in battle was a shock, then Master Senku asked me if I wanted to become his student. I accepted in an instant and we where of for his village. Master Senku trained me everyday after my school lessons with the training gradualy getting harder and harder and I was happy for the first time in my life since my father and mother died so long ago. even after my training i had trouble controling my anger because of how the other kids would make fun of my cat ears and tail, but I got use to it after a while and I made some great friends. One day while I was out exploring with my friend Kitsune, we see a burnning light glow from a spot of the forest near the river, we went back to the village to tell the villagers about the light. Once we got back to the village we saw the flames rise from the trees, all the villigers went to put out the fire. I looked around for Master Senku but couldnot find him. I went deep into the forest to serch for him when I spoted Master Senku on the ground, i was about half way through the undergroth until i saw her. Kinamiko, the demon who had murderd my father and ruind my life had Master Senku defeated. I was about to run out to him when he looked over at me, smiled, and with his last breath wisperd "I love you..." and in a moment he was gone...

hope that was good enough cuz i'm not so good at writing...
EDIT: sorry i forgot to italisize

[GraniteJJ]

I will read this when I have a free moment. I'm grounded right now and can't have access to the computer, so perhaps you could PM another mod and have them finish checking over your submission.

[DarkLink_14]

Ok, seeing as Granite is indesposed for the time being, I am going to give my own review of your latest edit. However, since Granite does have authority in this thread, he can choose to accept or deny whatever he sees fit.


Firstly, there are some pretty big problems with the bio. Firstly, you know you're in trouble when you cannot discern the character's gender after being told their life story. Logic suggests we should include that as a requirement for Part I of the submission and I will bring that to DJ's attention(it has since been added as a requirement). However, up until now we did not find it necessary to do so because that should be made clear in the biography.

Second, the strengths and weaknesses are all very general. Granted the general stuff is necessary, but the greatest strengths and weaknesses of a character never lay in the general. Those strengths and weaknesses that are related to the character and his or her life are what flesh out the character, give it depth. The strengths and weaknesses are what make it stand out.

Third. The character remains flat. In your first submission, your broad strokes made the character invisible. In this edit, your character has achieved an ambiguous identity. The furthest extent of the characterizations are something along the lines of "so-and-so happened now I'm mad," "so-and-so, now I'm happy." The golden rule in writen, most especially believable fiction, is to show not tell. I know its cliche, but its true. You say that she "knew true hate" when Kinamiko killed her father. What does that mean? It sounds nice, but show us what you mean. You make it sound like 'yeah, I really hate him. Now let's fast-forward to after they left.' When you use loaded words like 'hate,' you must back them up with description. You say her mother is devastated, and that's all. You call the world intolerant, and leave it at that. You call her arrogant, but there's almost no reason for it.

Emotions have collateral effects. Whether they're as obvious as a violent rampage or as subtle as a change in the way they understand something. The effect is directly related to the event and the related emotion. If a half-demon killed her father and hate boils up, you need to make conections between the two. Where is this hate directed? It is possible that the event spawned a hatred toward all the rogue demons and for Kinamiko in particular. If her mother's devastation was great enough to lead to her death, then show us how it lead to her death. There are many cases in which you can improve your bio by adding things in this way, too many for me to go over right now.

Fourth. While I can undestand what it is you are trying to do with a biography in the first-person, there are some flaws inherrent in the idea. The most important of these is the fact that it is very difficult for a character to give an objective view of themselves. While it is interesting to see the world directly through the character's eyes, the fact that it is up for review means you need to give us more information than the character herself would know. You are trying to give us a detailed description of the life-shaping events of the character's life, but we need to see an understanding beyond that of the character alone. From the first person view, the cause of the war and why Senku chose to take her under his wing can best be left like it is. However, for the review, we would very much like to know what exactly is happening, and why, and if you do it well, you will use that to further contribute to your character.

While I will not tell you to change the format to a third-person biography, I do urge you to consider the benefits of this format. In third person you can get more information into the biography. In first-person, the scope is just too narrow to get a true picture of the character. You can even try this with yourself. You can say you are this, this, and that, but unless you come across that way to other people, you must wonder whether or not you really are that way. I am not trying to say that your personality is completely dependant on what outsiders think of you, but they have a view of you that is just impossible to achieve through your own eyes.

And finally, spelling. The spelling just needs to be looked over and checked. I agree with Granite that not being "a good speller" is any sort of acceptable excuse. If you really want to clean it up, you can. Spelling is something so easy to get right, especially on the computer. I'd understand one or two errors, but with this many mistakes, its difficult to believe that you checked for spelling at all.

And that's all I have to say.

Once again, this is just my opinion, and Granite still retains full authority in this thread and has any and every right to accept and deny anything I have just said.

[GraniteJJ]

Thanks DarkLink. I appreciate the notes you made on this character. I've been unfortunately grounded this week, and can't come on for more than a few minutes each day, so you've really saved my butt here.

inuyashafanR, DL has provided you with some golden advice. Take it to heart, and try for another edit. You can do it if you give it your all.

[inuyashafanR]

well I'm sorry but I can't do any better dark link cuz I did my best on that and If you knew me in person youd know that everyone HATES my writing and that i can do no better than this so if its THAT BAD just close the topic so that I can just give UP already...

[GraniteJJ]

*sigh*

I'm disappointed that you felt the need to give up.

If you want to give up though, its your call.

Locked and void.